Having seen the updates at MEPA, Flimkien għal Ambjent Aħjar can now inform the public that MEPA’s Planning Director has dubbed the project to excavate St. John’s Street and Square a “non starter” due to the risk of potential damage to the foundations of St John’s Cathedral and reminded the architect that a number of heritage protection entities had already recommended that another building in Valletta be used for the Foundation’s as expansion requirements.  

In addition to the planned excavation to create massive underground chambers linking to the ancient water reservoirs there, the St. John’s Foundation is applying to cover over the St. John’s courtyard on Merchants’ Street with a glass ceiling and dome to serve as a visitors’ centre and ticketing booths. On the ground floor of the courtyard, a room is to be built to serve as a shop right next to the Knights’ graveyard whilst above, the plans show a room to be built, extending the covered passage outwards towards the graves. The MEPA Director has accepted that the roofing over of the cemetery with a transparent structure would be considered by the Authority.  

St. John’s Courtyard, graveyard of the Knights of the Order of St. John’s Hospitallers

As regards the negative verdict on the excavations, the project architect replied that the St John’s Co-Cathedral project has already been allocated funds under EU programmes Axis 2, Promoting Sustainable Tourism and Investing in Competitiveness for a better quality of life. He added, “You will appreciate that in view of the approved ERDF co-financing, review and determination of this application should be placed on the fast track and we would appreciate your urgent response."  FAA has in fact already noted that whereas planning applications of the general public take months and sometimes years to be processed, PA 00167/08 took exactly 19 days at a time when the country was in the throes of a general election.  

FAA reiterates and confirms its stand against both proposals for these reasons: 

1. St John’s Co-Cathedral is already functioning successfully as a museum therefore there is no justification to violate the clauses of its National Monument Grade I scheduling in order to stay open: “Buildings of outstanding architectural or historical interest that shall be preserved in their entirety. Demolition or alterations which impair the setting or change the external or internal appearance, including anything contained within the curtilage of the building, will not be allowed.  Internal structural alterations will only be allowed in exceptional circumstances where this is paramount for reasons of keeping the building in active use.”  As such St. John’s cannot be tampered with, and especially not for financial gain.

2. The excavation of St. John’s Street and Square will cause irremediable damage to the remains of a Knight’s palace there. Valletta 's underground chambers, tunnels, channels and water cisterns are 16th century engineering treasures, and as such they should be mapped out, studied and preserved, and not damaged and exploited.

3. Feasible alternatives exist for the extension of the required museum space such as the acquisition of a deteriorating palazzo.  This option would not only serve to restore the building and enrich Valletta but has the added advantage of relieving St John’s Co-Cathedral of the heavy influx of visitors, allowing the Foundation to accept more visitors and increase its earnings. 

4. A study to maximise space within St. John’s might find space to hang the Gobelins tapestries within the Cathedral or museum while other exhibits like church vestments and manuscripts can be moved elsewhere.

5. Re. the EU programmes on sustainable tourism and competitiveness, due to aspects of dehumidifying and cooling underground chambers, the project is environmentally unsustainable and carries an element of risk for the Gobelins Tapestries. St. John’s Cathedral does not need to enter the frenetic world of competitiveness since most visitors to Malta are already paying visitors to the Cathedral.

6. These projects are potentially very damaging not only to our heritage but also to our communal values; do we really want ticketing booths and a visitors’ centre (or possibly worse) in the graveyard of the Knights?

These applications also go directly against the Mepa Structure Plan which ‘acknowledges the special status of Valletta as a UNESCO World Heritage site and nominates Valletta as the principal beneficiary of the establishment of Urban Conservation Policies the basic objective being to preserve and enhance all buildings, spaces, townscape and landscape which are of architectural or historical interest and generally to safeguard areas of high environmental quality’.   

Aerial view of the courtyard showing how the proposed extension at first floor will create a negative sense of enclosure

FAA maintains that both these applications should be refused irrespective of the acquisition of EU funding which will lead to the exploitation the prime monument in Valletta and damage to Valletta’s subterranean heritage when other feasible and simple alternatives exist as not only suggested by FAA, but also by other entities and the MEPA Planning Directorate.  

Within a day of FAA’s circulating its stand on the matter, MEPA had already received 150 official objections to the project from the public, and FAA urges members of the public who have Malta’s heritage at heart to visit its website www.ambjentahjar.org where they can submit an objection to MEPA on these applications.

Flimkien ghal Ambjent Ahjar
29th July 2008